Are Pennsylvanians Getting Their Money's Worth? The General Assembly Will Spend About $185 Million On Itself This Fiscal Year. The Legislature's Chief Product -- Laws -- Come At Price Only Government Could Afford.

February 25, 1996|by MARIO F. CATTABIANI, The Morning Call

What does $15.35 buy these days?

A full tank of gas? Or perhaps a haircut?

Well, that's the amount every man, woman and child in Pennsylvania will pay this year to bankroll the state Legislature.

When factoring all the costs -- from salaries, car and district office leases to state flags handed out to constituents back home -- the Pennsylvania General Assembly will spend upwards of $185 million on itself this coming fiscal year.

That's more of your state taxes going to pay for a 253-member General Assembly and related legislative spending than is earmarked for the departments of Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources and Labor and Industry -- combined.

In fact, it cost more than 1-1/2 times the amount to run the Legislature than the annual operating budgets of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton put together.

If the Legislature -- with its more than 3,000 employees -- was a business, it would rank among the higher tiers of Pennsylvania corporations. However, it's chief product -- laws -- come at a price only government could afford.

Broken down, the state spent about $1.1 million on the Legislature for every law it enacted last year. And that's in a productive session chock full of 37 anti-crime measures.

It's somewhat of a misnomer to call legislators "lawmakers." They are increasingly touting service to constituents -- helping residents in their home districts wade through the Harrisburg bureaucracy -- as their primary responsibility.

The practice, all agree, requires more staff and is a bigger drain on budgets. In the past seven years alone, legislative staffing has increased by more than 1,000 positions. So, are Pennsylvanians getting their money's worth?

"Fifteen bucks a person doesn't sound like a lot, but if you are spending it to get a loaf of day-old bread, there are better bargains to be had," said David Buffington, editor of The Pennsylvania Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter. "That better bargain is the part-time legislature."

Said Rep. Allen Kukovich, "It's not worth the money when we are not adequately dealing with the serious issues, the problems with health care, tax fairness."

A Westmoreland County Democrat, Kukovich is one of a small clique of lawmakers who have introduced bills over the years to increase legislative accountability by reducing the number of seats in the General Assembly. Though he has introduced the same measure since 1978, none has even made it out of committee.

The legislative price tag represents slightly more than 1 percent of Pennsylvania's proposed $16.19 billion general fund budget for 1996-97.

That wasn't always the case.

"We now have a well-paid, professional full-time legislature. And we get a lot of legislative service," said Mike Young, a politics professor at Penn State University. "But it's a lot of money for what used to be a citizen legislature."

In 1965 -- near the point many political pundits consider as the death of the part-time, or citizen legislator -- the state spent about 0.5 percent of its overall general fund budget on the Legislature.

And, in the past 30 years, the cost of the Legislature has grown at 2-1/2 times the rate of the general fund, according to a comparison of the state's spending packages.

Pennsylvania, the nation's fifth most populous state, ranks third in overall legislative spending. Only New York and California spend more, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"State government has gotten to be big business," said Sen. Clarence Bell, R-Chester County. Bell, 82, should know. He's been around Harrisburg longer than any other lawmaker.

When first elected to the House in 1954, Bell didn't even have his own office. He was his own staff. Six year later, when he was first elected to the Senate, he shared an office -- one desk and one chair -- with another legislator.

As head of the Senate Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee and the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, Bell now has a suite of offices and a staff of more than 50 aides, researchers, lawyers and secretaries.

"It was a rich man's or gentlemen's club," recalled Bell. "The items contained in the telephone-book-thick budgets that we have now were not being performed back then. It's a different world you are living in today."

Future legislative spending, meantime, likely will grow at a larger clip as Pennsylvania --along with other states -- will be given more control over programs now handled by Washington.

What's more, in the 1997-98 fiscal year Harrisburg will also have to account for the increasing salaries of lawmakers -- who last year handed themselves not only a 19-percent raise but also set in motion annual cost-of-living boosts.